Carn B/P, admit it.

You're secretly quite thrilled that you have been recognized, aren't you?

But to be honest, you should have stayed away a little longer than your farewell at 9.51 p.m. on 24th, and your new "hallo" at 6.01 the next morning. (I'm ignoring the couple of tidying-up posts, so as not to draw attention to any potential duplicity of representation - you are of course forgiven in advance).

A longer sabbatical would have enabled you to reinvent yourself a little more completely.

>>The "Gang of 10" showed how they could impose their will on the whole of American Educational life.. not a small feat by any means<<

Your tendency to see conspiracy against you and your religion at every turn is still the most obvious of your many hallmarks.

It was most certainly not the will of ten people that was imposed "on the whole of American Educational life", B/P.

Read the judgement again. The entire subject under discussion is not the will of ten people, but whether the First Amendment had been breached.

"..we think that the constitutional prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion must at least mean that in this country it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government"

If there is a conspiracy, B/P, then it is as old as the First Amendment itself, which came into force on 15th December 1791.

And to refresh your memory, here it is again:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Note also that it talks about what the government can and cannot do. It says nothing about what individuals or groups of individuals may or may not do.

Have a great day. Both of you.

The further we can keep primitive religious philosophies away from innocent young minds the better

Those advocating religious instruction usually do so in praise of the velvet glove of Christian goodness, love, compassion and generosity. What's always left out is reference to the iron fist of intolerance, misogyny, bigotry and homophobia, coupled with the indoctrination and brutalisation of young children that is likely to follow.

Telling small children that, if they don't believe in the gods of the Christian church, when they die they'll rot in hell, scares the bejesus out of them and warps their minds forever. Giving people acccess to schools to promote this philosophy is a dreadful thing to suggest. Then of course there is the dressing up, the guilt and the blood drinking rituals that come with the philosophy, all designed to lock kids in for life.

In past times if you didn't agree with this philosophy you were either locked up or burnt at the stake.

The Christian churches in their varied forms claim to speak on behalf of the god who doesn't believe in many of the things most of us stand for; democracy, (did anyone out there get to vote for Ratzinger or Pell), equal rights for women, equal rights for homosexuals, birth control, sex before marriage, euthanansia ...

Some of these people are just itching to get into schools to tell children that the earth is only 5000 years old.

It's a primitive, fascist philosophy that dates back to the time when god so loved that world that he drowned everyone except Noah and his family; to Moses who carried the sixth commandment in one hand while he killed 3000 of his parishioners with the other.

Putting religion into schools is just another marketing and public relations exercise by the members of this largely boys own theocracy.

If people want to study philosophy let them do it in university. In the meantime, let's not suffer young and impressionable minds to put up with this stuff.

Frank_Blunt

Polycarp.
I am still bothered by your sweeping assumptions .about there being one central theme in Christian prayer is nonexistent. There are many examples that come to mind. e.g.
-Religious society of friends (Quakers) all their prayers are done in silence:
-The 7th Days believe that mainstream denominations especially the Catholics are trying to take over all religion. Hence they scorn the Ecumenical councils.
-The Copts, Marinites and the orthodox churches have their variations on a theme.
NB. The Lords Prayer was introduced in the New Testament. There are still community denominational bias’ out there even among the nominal Christians. The one growing group you seem to ignore is the no religion in short would be less agreement than you think.

My tentative thoughts towards the origins of morals include that they are refinements of biological (evolutionary) influence. e.g. The Wild beast if low birth numbers will tend towards defending the female and their young.

The biggest bug bare about Christian fundamentalists is that (for their own reasons) deliberately misquote the Theory of evolution.
- Evolution never said we evolved from apes. It says in essence we evolved from a common ancestor ….a big difference.
- That Evolution is about the survival of the fittest. This phrase came from a Contemporary Astronomer, Fundamentalist Christian and competitor for head of the premier Science association. It says about survival of the most adaptable.
Why is evolution still a theory? Because while it explains a lot it because there are too many variable and too much time (10 s of thousands of yeas and the simular numbers of species) … It can’t be adequately (scientifically) tested to the standard level of confidence.

Religion and national identities are the most superficial, changed and cause of wars.

Languages, cultures and identities change over time and some aspects tend to become less important and disappear. It could be argued that not all changeis for the better though.

Frank_Blunt

'Telling small children that, if they don't believe in the gods of the Christian church, when they die they'll rot in hell, scares the bejesus out of them and warps their minds forever.'

It just happens that tens of thousands totally disagree with you. The godless schools have been loosing kids at the rate of knots. The schools that honour God are growing dramatically and dare I say finishing a lot higher up academically and morally as your beloved godless schools. Funny isn't it that so many godless people have to put up with godly education in order to get the results they want for their kids. People are voting with their feet leaving the godless zoos in droves. At least Mr Rudd is smart enough to see it.

Hopefully a day will come when the failed secular schools will be totally empty. It might take a few more secularist to eat humble pie and admit they have failed before this happens.

Hi Examinator...

all those things you said are true at some time or other.
but I won't get sidetracked onto evolution at this point.

Even Frank, as he so bluntly puts it.. is correct in some of what he says in my view.

But what he gives one name to, we might call 'sin'....which needs to be repented of.

The idea of children being taught that if God is King of your life and heart in Christ that the world will suddenly go down the gurgler is invalidated by history. It was this very thing which overtook Rome in spite of it's most monstrous efforts.

The Lords prayer is something that every denomination could agree with.. no if's buts or maybe's.

It is a beautiful prayer too...

But the 'gang' of 10 did (contrary to Pericles assertion) gain a court victory which saw prayer thrown out, and the most regrettable thing of it all (and which Pericles himself demonstrated) is that the 1st ammendment did nothing whatsoever to exclude prayer from schools per se.

It was the 14th amemendment which was used to greater effect from my rather quick reading of the judgement..and even that was misused as far as I can see.

Often..judgments depend on the judge as much as anything.

Noting the 5/4 split in the court and how hysterical Democrats get when the incumbents try to appoint an 'unknown' quantity to the supreme court.. it goes without saying that a judgement can reflect the Judges socio political views more than 'evidence & justice'.

We put the judges in power who will give us the decisions WE want from them... right? :) (where 'we'=vested political interest)

Runner, people aren't dragging their children out of public schools because they're godless, they're sending them to private schools because they perceive the overall standard of education is better.

For one thing the private schools have more freedom to sack incompetent teachers. They have better conditions for their staff (code for more holidays); more money to purchase teaching aids and sporting equipment; ovals, courts, gyms and pools; they attract a better clientele.

The boards and managers of private schools insist that their teachers take sport after school and on Saturday morning, run the debating and the school musical; take students on camps and field trips - places where the real education takes place.

So ask yourself this question; if you could afford it, would you rather your child go to St Peters College or Elizabeth Boys Tech School?

Of course the discipline and the results in private schools are better. If you're forking out 10 Grand a year for your child's education you want to see some results for your investment - from your child and their teachers.

If parents know their children have to put up with a bit of god-bothering to get a decent education, then that's the price they're prepared to pay. Plus of course, most of them know that if their children are smart enough, as most of them are, they'll see through the nonsense. That's why churches are empty. Regretably it's something you have to put up with to get a decent education.

Most parents are conditioned only to see the velvet glove, and to my knowledge, there aren't many private schools that advertise the iron fist in their prospectus. But it's there, a phantom (code for holy spirit), lurking in the background, like the unseen guest (code for the remains of Jesus of Nazareth) that used to have a place at every tea table.

As for World Youth Day, treat your kids to a day out at Rose Hill. They'll have more fun and could come away with bit of extra pocket money.